eat has overcome him," she said, after a quick
examination; and truly the cabin was insufferably hot, thanks to the
machinery and the fervid rays of the sun.

We could not open the scuttles and admit fresh air, for there was little
or none to admit.

"I shall try oxygen," she said on reflecting a moment.

Accordingly, while Gazen, in obedience to her directions began to work
Carmichael's arms up and down, after the method of artificial
respiration which had brought me round at the outset of our journey, she
and I administered oxygen gas from one of our steel bottles to his lungs
by means of a makeshift funnel applied to his mouth. In some fifteen or
twenty minutes he began to show signs of returning animation, and soon
afterwards, to our great relief, he opened his eyes.

At first he looked about him in a bewildered way, and then he seemed to
recollect his whereabouts. After an ineffectual attempt to speak, and
move his limbs, he fixed his eyes with a meaning expression on the
engines.

We had forgotten their stoppage. Miss Carmichael sprang to investigate
the cause.

"They are jammed," she said after a short inspection. "The essential
part is jammed with the heat. Whatever is to be done?"

We stared at each other blankly as the terrible import of her words came
home to us. Unless we could start the machines again, we must inevitably
fall back on Mercury. Perhaps we were falling now!

We endeavoured to think of a ready and practicable means of cooling the
engines, but without success. The water and oil on board was lukewarm;
none of us knew how to make a freezing mixture even if we had the
materials; our stock of liquid air had long been spent.

Miss Carmichael tried to make her father understand the difficulty in
hopes that he would suggest a remedy, but all her efforts were in vain.
Carmichael lay with his eyes closed in a kind of lethargy or paralysis.

"Perhaps, when we are falling through the planet's atmosphere," said I,
"if we open the scuttles and let the cold air blow through the room, it
will cool the engines."

"I'm afraid there will not be time," replied Gazen, shaking his head;
"we shall fall much faster than we rose. The friction of the air against
the car will generate heat. We shall drop down like a meteoric stone and
be smashed to atoms."

"We have parachutes," said Miss Carmichael, "do you think we shall be
able to save our lives?"

"I doubt it," answered Gazen sadly. "They would be tor